The Socially Bookmarked Teacher

There is so much information on the internet. Too much information. We are conditioned to believe that more is better and I suppose it is nice to have options. But how do we sort it all so it becomes less overwhelming and intimidating? How do we stay focused on a topic we want to bring into our lesson plan? And more importantly, how do we ever find it again?

And so we look to the source of the problem for the solution to the problem. And its the internet, so it has an answer for everything. And here we find social bookmarking. But I have a bookmarking feature on my computer, why do I need to sign up for another account?? Well social bookmarking is different...because it is social. That means you can access your colleagues' bookmarks too (this could mean less work for you).

 Not surprisingly, there are many options for social bookmarking sites. But I'm going to compare two, Diigo and scoop it. Both sites took just a few minutes to create an account, confirm the email and walk you through getting started. With Diigo, I just continued onto my usual google search methods and clicked on the digolet bookmark when I found an interesting site. I then added  tags to organize the information (the whole point is organizing!), and when I went back to the site there was everything nice and neat and searchable, like my own little relevant search engine. Diigo also allows you to highlight within an article, making what you want to find even easier.

Scoop It was more like a search engine in itself. As soon as I typed in keywords on the start up page I had related videos on my side bar. This was fairly convenient and I found myself using this feature to sift through information. Scoop It is also more geared towards specific topics to follow, as opposed to Diigo, where you would follow people. You have the option of liking a post on Scoop It, but you can only comment on Diigo.

So, I like both. I feel like Diigo would be good for following colleagues and Scoop It might be better for following topics from people around the world. I want a combination of the two, on one account.   It is the internet, so I'm sure that will become available in a week or so.